The Courage To Study The Self

Life hurts—but not because of any fault or misdeed of our own. Things just simply don’t always go the way we’d like them to. How can Buddhist practice equip us to deal with life’s inevitable letdowns? Zen teacher Teah Strozer’s answer is the straightforward, deceptively simple acronym RAIN: recognize, accept, investigate, not-identify. If we practice it, we’ll gain the skills to respond mindfully whenever difficult emotions and experiences arise. By incorporating RAIN into our daily lives, we will begin to connect authentically with whatever comes up, whether or not things go exactly the way we’d like—and especially when they don’t.